His insight brings me to new peaks of excitement:
No movement in the
history of mankind has produced more words for free than the
libertarian movement. And yet, its fundamental ideology is that people
do everything for money, that being how markets send signals about what
makes people happy – giving money to the people who do them. One could
understand communists or Christian missionaries – but free marketeers?
Either they must believe that there is so much prosperity waiting for
them on the other side of the revolution that years of unpaid labor is
worth it, or they don’t really believe what they say they believe.
For a clear argument, try this:
To generate a Reactionary movement, all one needed to do is create a
demon, a nomos and a boundary that separated the two. Rhetoric falls
out of this almost immediately, since it is all about either
emphasizing the evils of the demon, the self-justifying good of the
nomos, and the importance of having an absolute and simplistic boundary
between the two. This means that not even a speck of evil can be
tolerated, not a single example. It also means that whatever is inside
the tank, once all corrupting influences are removed, must be pure
good, and therefore even questioning it is evil.
The essential insanity of the last decade has been this – by creating a
vast dollar glut, the United States has managed to create an
inflationary rev up of the world economy. By moving much farther up the
curve of diminishing returns of oil production, it has manged to create
a small amount of extra growth, and a great deal of extra profit and
ownership for those involved in the oil production.
He blogs "economics" on TPM Cafe. You can peruse this post for more. He is also a composer. I thank an avid reader of Stirling for the pointer.
As Robin Ficker used to say: "Josh Marshall, telephone…!"
Addendum: Here is another dose of Stirling…
Why should the incentives of a communist and libertarian writer be any different? Neither one is expecting a direct monetary gain as a result. Aren’t they both getting direct utility from advocating what they think is right?
It’s “fundamental ideology” is not that “people do everything for money” (regardless of how nice it is that markets do send pretty good signals by giving money to those who do what others need or want). It’s fundamental ideology is that things turn out awfully well for most everyone when people are free and the signals of money and all kinds of other signals are allowed to be sent pretty much at will.
Why must libertarians be waiting only for prosperity and why only for themselves? I know one libertarian who feels so much gratitude towards John Locke and Thomas Paine that he feels happily obliged to carry on the work they so wonderfully blessed us with.
While it is true many libertarians work to find every speck of evil, and that this tendency can sometimes be counterproductive….. on the other hand ignoring the distinctions between plain evil and common good can eventually lead a Germanic people to end up supporting a man like Hitler or an American people one like Woodrow Wilson. If you had been an early exclaimer of the dangers of Castro, Khomeini, Lenin or Pol Pot, you would doubtless have been accused of being a narrow minded reactionary…. and so indeed it was said of Thomas Paine.
He says it’s all about “a small amount of extra growth” …. Well, in Viet Nam alone, the percentage of folk living below the $1 a day line has declined from 50% to less than 15% in just the last 15 years…. not to mention the broader escape from poverty in places like China, India, and Indonesia.
All this guy’s posts can be summed up easily: “only liberals truly CARE – everyone else is a greedy SOB”.
Yeah, Tyler was being sarcastic. The addition of that last link was for those of us who didn’t get the joke at first. You must read the exchange between Drum and Newberry. It’s priceless. This Stirling Newberry looks like a real clown to me.
Stirling is more interesting and useful when he is wrong or obtuse than 20 academics trying to time a housing bubble or defend a collapsed neo-liberal consensus. I suspect he is a genius, and so inevitably an ornery and over-sensitive SOB. For most of you, this will speak to my own ability to analyze arguments; a few of you might want to check him out at length.
OK, I read it quickly and didn’t get the sarcasm at first. It did seem strange that Tyler was being so complimentary.
I thought his critique of the free market was funny. If we minimize the government’s influence within our lives then it must be out of some sort of maniacal blud lust for money. God for bid that some of us just want to hold onto our meager earnings and not have to buy good’s that are artificialy expensive due to the perceived benevelonce of government regulation of the economy. Libertarianism to me is just because it keeps people with designs on my life off my back. Everyone has a pet project for a “better world” and there is no better context than government for violently compeling people into adherence towards your plan.
Who is Stirling Newberry? Apparently, he’s some guy whom I should ignore.
“A rich soundscape, which touches Bach, Stravinsky and Copland, but presses on to the 21st century in painting the dark swirls of clouds, and memorializing those striken by Hurricane Katrina.” Wow. Just. Wow.
So what about it, Tyler? Was your post an example of your hitherto hidden taste for sarcasm?
“It’s “fundamental ideology” is not that “people do everything for money” (regardless of how nice it is that markets do send pretty good signals by giving money to those who do what others need or want)”
The reason libertarian talk is so cheap, is because the supply greatly excedes the demand.
I offer my apologies to Newberry if
this poster is posing as him, although who would ever
want to do such a thing?
“The reason libertarian talk is so cheap,
is because the supply greatly excedes the demand.”
That’s Stirling Newberry posting for free (cheap) on
a popular, i.e. high demand, libertarian blog.
I guess when the supply of leftist chatter
exceeds the demand, Newberry calls it “speaking truth
to power”.
Oh, and here’s some cheap, but badly needed, rewriting:
“Libertarian talk is so cheap because the supply exceeds the demand.”
If you’re going to say something stupid,
Newberry (which seems to be your hobby), at least say it well.
Longtime Newberry spotter doing a drive-by (I was looking for the name of his alleged “capital fund” to see whether he’d ever gotten the site running, and this post came up in the search).
One of my favorite Newberry Moments was when he became “chief economist” at a pay-for-play stock research firm. Not that there’s anything wrong with the issuer-sponsored model; there are plenty of fine analysts in that field and they perform a valuable service. The funny thing was that in that role he published a single short macro update (I seem to remember four pages total, including cover and boilerplate) and then disappeared from the company’s official list of analysts. Kindergarten fluff and for all I remember, utterly wrong.
I kept meaning to ask Langner about it, but never found a way to pose the question in a more diplomatic way than “there’s this guy claiming to be your chief economist. What were you thinking?” But now Langner itself seems to be gone. I saved a copy of Newberry’s report though — wonder where I put it? In any event, 22fg looks to be an even more absurd puff piece than his “chief economist” title, since this time nobody seems to be buying into the hype but himself.
I’d be interested in seeing Stirling’s CV. I don’t see it online anywhere, though.
Stirling is a paranoid little fellow with a massive Napoleonic complex. He used to post regularly at the Salon.com forums, and quickly fell into screaching insults at anyone who disagreed with him.
Occassionally I google his name to see if he’s changed at all. This time, this page came up. Judging by the other sites, he hasn’t changed.
Used to regularly bust “Dingleberry’s” balls on a number of message boards and forums….a complete nutter.
This guy has just popped up in a chat room devoted to Winston Churchill and added some drivel.
Who is this guy, where was he educated and what does he do for a living?
dell precision m65 battery
More here.
Stirling is a narcissist without an audience.
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